Bill jumped down and stared at the plane. “You take off on this road? Isn’t that dangerous with all these trees?”
“Nah,” I said. “It’s a lot less dangerous than the airport.” I headed to the back of the truck and dropped the lift gate. Clutch casually screwed the cap on his steaming thermos and slid it into the bag on his wheelchair. After twelve or so hours of rest, Clutch’s pain had receded, and his mood had improved. His face seemed lighter this morning, and I knew he was eager for his first flight with me. I pulled two two-by-sixes out and made a ramp against the truck.
“The airport is close to Chow Town,” Jase said, walking past us. “So the risk of zeds getting in our way on takeoff or landing is a lot higher. This road is straight and close to the park. Besides, it’s not like we have to worry about traffic.”
Clutch wheeled his chair down the primitive ramp, and we headed for the Cessna 172. “The weather looks good today,” he said.
I looked out to the sky another time. “Yeah. It’s great flying weather.” I went down on a knee and began removing the tie-downs.
“Don’t you have to land at an airport to get fuel?” Bill asked from behind me.
Once I tugged the first rope from the plane, I moved onto the next. “No. We truck the av-gas in.” I pointed to the pickup truck we’d arrived in. “You see that white tank on the back of the truck?”
He looked and then frowned. “That’s for the airplanes? I thought it was an extra tank for the truck.”
I shook my head. “We have a full-sized gas truck for all of our cars and trucks. We use that tank just for the airplanes.” We’d found the fuel tank on the back of some farmer’s truck. We’d cleaned out the tank and filled it with aviation fuel at the airport. “It works pretty good,” I tacked on before glancing over to see Jase helping Clutch get into the front seat. I looked back at Bill. “We’ll be taking off soon. We’ll be in the air for a few hours, so if you need to hit the bathroom, this is your last chance.”
“It’s okay. I’m ready to go.” Bill wrung his hands and headed toward Jase.
“Jase can help get you strapped in,” I said and walked my preflight checklist. After I made a final circle around the plane, I headed for the cockpit.
“We’re all set. Clutch is up front since it would be too much of a hassle to put him in the backseat,” Jase said as he held the door open.
“That makes sense,” I said. “I guess it’s time, then.” While Jase stood off to the side of the plane, I climbed into the front left seat of the small four-seater.
In the seat next to mine, Clutch was busy stashing his backpack under his seat.
Bill was strapped in the seat behind Clutch and already had a headset on. I set my spear and rifle alongside Clutch’s Blaser rifle between our seats, and buckled into the pilot’s seat.
I smiled at Clutch strapped in next to me. “Our first flight together.”
He nodded and for the first time in months, a genuine smile emerged. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”
“Jase is my usual co-pilot. But since you’re riding shotgun, you want to be my navigator on this run?”
“Sure.” A sense of purpose spanned his features. “Do you have a map?”
A smile crept up my cheeks. “It’s good to have you back,” I said quietly as I pulled out the sectional maps I’d marked up last night and handed them to him.
He watched me for a moment, and the tiniest hint of a smile curled his lips. He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it, choosing instead to say nothing.
“All right,” I said with a sigh. I pointed to black circle that marked the park and moved my finger an inch or so. “We’re about here right now and our flight path is that penciled line there. We’ll be on a heading of zero-one-zero. The map continues on this side.” I flipped the large sheet over.
“I’m a Ranger,” he replied with a smirk. “I’ve read a map once or twice.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I guess you have.” After a moment, I grabbed a pen from my pocket and handed it to him. “We need to mark down every large herd we fly over. Be careful to mark down their current locations. If you can see any kind of path they’ve trampled, try to note their trajectory, if you can. Hopefully, we’ll be able to figure out if any herds will come near the park or if we’re in the clear. If any are headed our way, I think Tyler’s counting on you to help figure out some kind of response plan.”
“I figured as much,” he said, his smile fading.
“I’m still hoping Manny was exaggerating, and there aren’t any big herds headed this direction.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Clutch said quietly.
This morning, while we were at the stream, I’d brought Clutch and Jase up to speed on everything Manny had said. But, it wasn’t until Jase had left to grab the truck that I’d told Clutch just how large the herds were reported to me. I swallowed and gave a tight nod before going through my pre-startup checks. Satisfied, I looked outside to Jase who was busy keeping an eye out for zeds. “Clear,” I called out. I turned the prop on the engine and it came to life. The magnetos were starting to run rough. Unfortunately, I knew nothing about the mechanics of an airplane besides the most basic items, and neither did anyone at the park. There were two guys who maintained the Humvees, and they were doing their best to keep the plane in shape as much as their knowledge would allow. If the FAA still existed, they would’ve grounded this operation months ago. As it stood, it was just a matter of time before I’d have to find a new airplane for transporting cargo and going on longer scouting trips like today’s.
Once the engine warmed up, I taxied the plane onto the road and ran through my pre-takeoff checks. It took a few minutes to tame the coughing engine by leaning the mixture and playing with the throttle. Once everything was in the green, I motioned to Jase who, after one final three-sixty, ran over and squeezed inside behind me. Takeoff was the most dangerous part of the flight. There was no way to mask engine noise and full throttle, and even though any zed that neared the park was quickly dispatched, more zeds showed up all the time.
As Jase buckled in, I put on my headset. While there was no use for headsets to communicate with control towers or traffic, they did make it easier to talk with the passengers and to report in to Tyler when we were returning from scouting trips so he could make sure the runway was cleared for landing. To not draw zeds to the area, I liked to fly straight in and with the throttle pulled back to keep my landing as quiet as possible.
“Everyone ready for takeoff?” I asked.
Clutch nodded. “Ready.”
I looked to the backseat.
“I’m ready,” Bill said, his voice coming through loud and clear through my headset.
Jase was still adjusting his boom. “Let’s rock and roll,” he said.
I smirked and then turned my focus onto the road in front of me. I pushed the throttle full forward, and the plane rolled ahead, slowly at first, and then passing each yellow divided highway line faster and faster. I tugged back on the yoke, and the plane lifted off the ground gently, the smoothness of the air instead of tires against rough concrete was the only sense of transition from the ground to the sky. As the plane climbed, I turned toward north on my compass heading.
I set the stopwatch taped on the panel, a backup to help remind me how much fuel I had remaining. I looked at Clutch. “While you look for herds, keep an eye out for landmarks and let me know if we start to veer off our flight path.”
“Got it,” he replied, all business.
“If I have to ride backseat, I call dibs on the music,” Jase said, and I found an iPod dropped onto my lap.
With a chuckle, I plugged his MP3 into the audio input and kicked off the playlist he always listened to on our scouting runs. Flying was one of the few times we could listen to music without fear of zeds, and we always played rock-paper-scissors to see whose music would be played. Though, listening to any music was nice. Pop music filtered through our headsets, and I turned up the volume.